Thursday, February 04, 2010
Vast Empire Constituency
When Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman remarked recently that,"The powers that are trying to shrink our aspiration for democracy are greater than our imagination", I was reminded of an observation by American author Jerry Sanders: "How deeply militarism is rooted in America's political culture must rank as the most profound question of our time". Twenty-seven years after Sanders wrote Peddlers of Crisis, that question remains.
At the time, Sanders referred to the vast empire constituency of the liberal/conservative alliance that ruled the US, what some have since termed the progressive/fascist alliance. Even with the rise of the ameliorationists, responding to the Madison Avenue campaign for hope and change, the assumptions of militarism as America's favored form of diplomacy have gone largely unchallenged.
As America's politically-correct progressives wrestle with the dichotomy of another imperial presidency, marketed as both main street's Messiah and the torchbearer of Reagan's legacy, the failure of our imagination takes on apocalyptic proportions.
At the time, Sanders referred to the vast empire constituency of the liberal/conservative alliance that ruled the US, what some have since termed the progressive/fascist alliance. Even with the rise of the ameliorationists, responding to the Madison Avenue campaign for hope and change, the assumptions of militarism as America's favored form of diplomacy have gone largely unchallenged.
As America's politically-correct progressives wrestle with the dichotomy of another imperial presidency, marketed as both main street's Messiah and the torchbearer of Reagan's legacy, the failure of our imagination takes on apocalyptic proportions.
